Telemarketing systems, also known as automated dialing systems, have evolved substantially in the past two decades. Some early telemarketing systems consisted of no more than a display terminal connected to a memory, and a telephone. These early systems required the agent to enter a command which recalled from the memory and displayed at the agent's terminal the name and telephone number of the customer to be called. The agent then manually dialed the telephone number and, if the customer answered, the agent discussed the reason for the call or initiated an automated voice message. The script of the reason for the call was originally written on a piece of paper. In later systems, the script was presented on the display screen of the agent terminal.
The next generation of telemarketing systems provided for automated dialing. That is, the agent would enter a command to recall the name and telephone number of the customer from the memory and the telemarketing system would then automatically dial the telephone number. This increased the agent efficiency because the automated dialing process was faster and there were fewer, if any, misdialed numbers. However, the agent was on the telephone line for the entire dialing and ringing process and had to wait until the called party answered. If the called number was busy or did not answer then the agent's time was wasted. Therefore, agent efficiency was still less than desirable.
Other improvements introduced later were call pacing and predictive dialing. With call pacing the telemarketing system would pace the placement of the calls at a rate set by a system administrator. More calls would be placed than there were agents available because some of the calls would be busy or not answered. This provided a higher agent efficiency because the agent did not have to dial a call or wait on a call to be answered by the called party. Instead, the agent simply logged on to the telemarketing system and the system dialed the calls. The system would automatically determine the status of the call, such as no dial tone, no ring, busy, no answer, three-tone intercept, and answered. When a call was answered by the called party, the telemarketing system automatically connected the agent to the called party and displayed the information for the called party on the agent's terminal. As soon as the agent indicated that a particular transaction had been completed the system would connect another called party to the agent. The system administrator could, in some systems, adjust the rate "on the fly" so that if the original call pacing rate was incorrect the call pacing rate could be adjusted to match the campaign "hit rate", that is, the percent of the calls dialed that were actually answered by a human.
However, conditions would often change faster than the system administrator could detect and compensate for. Also, the system administrator frequently had other duties, such as training agents, handling problem calls or customers, typing, sending and reviewing facsimile messages, etc. Therefore, the selected call pacing rate would generally lag the rate required by the current conditions. If the selected call pacing rate was too slow then some agents would be idle; if the selected call pacing rate was too fast then the agents would all be busy but some called parties would have to be placed on hold because all the agents were busy. The first condition was inefficient; the second condition caused irritated and/or lost customers, and complaints to the local public service commission.
With automatic call pacing the telemarketing system would monitor the hit rate, the time that it took for a called party to answer, the time that an agent spent on each call, etc., and adjusted the call pacing rate accordingly. This improvement increased the agent efficiency and also had the benefit of reducing the number of answered calls which were placed on hold.
Early automated dialing systems could only handle one campaign or "split" at a time. Later systems were improved but were still limited to one campaign at a time per agent or group of agents. When a first campaign ended, the system administrator would specify the calling list for a second campaign, and the second campaign would be started. However, during the period between the end of the first campaign and the start of the second campaign the agents would be idle. Some systems now provide for two or more campaigns to be conducted simultaneously. Some agents are designated for the first campaign, and other agents are designated for the second campaign. Other automated dialing systems, such as the system described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,343,518, can be programmed to link campaigns so that, as a first campaign ends, the agents are automatically switched to a second campaign, which may already be in progress.
Further, outbound dialing campaigns have historically performed by extracting information from host files. The host files have information about the customers to be contacted. These files, commonly referred to as calling lists, are collections of records made up of information fields, including the telephone number of the customer to be contacted. The selection and order of the records to be included in a calling list are based on business strategy designed to reach a select type of customer, such as, customers with accounts over 30 days past due. These calling lists, once created, are fixed, or "static", and typically cannot be readily altered. If changes are necessary, then the list is discarded and a new list is created from the host files.
The typical automated dialing system generates a single list for each campaign, and methodically works down through the list, dialing one number after another, until all of the numbers in the list have been dialed. When a list has been completed the system administrator can instruct the system to return to the list, search a field in the list to determine if a call was not successful, that is, the number was busy, not answered, or answered by a machine, etc., and make another attempt at the calls which were previously not successful. Each time that a pass through the list has been completed the system administrator can instruct the system to make another pass through the list or to begin another campaign. Again, this procedure requires the attention of the system administrator, and the system administrator must make a judgment call as to whether there are enough unsuccessful calls remaining in the list to warrant another pass through the list. Further, if another pass through the list is warranted, the system administrator has to decide how many agents to allocate for that pass and how many agents may be moved to service another campaign.
Therefore, there is a need for a system which allows the system administrator to program a "calling strategy" into the system so that the system automatically follows the strategy without the further intervention of the system administrator.
Further, there is a need for a system which will place calls to selected numbers, some of which may have been previously called, and which will place the calls at the time, date, day of week, and/or to the area specified by the customer to be called, the system administrator, and/or the provider of the products/services involved.
Some campaigns are doomed to be ineffective from the very beginning. A state holiday in a first area may not be a holiday in a second area. Therefore, a campaign directed to the second area may have a very low hit rate because most of the customers are at work. Conversely, a campaign directed to the first area may have a high hit rate because it is a holiday there. Also, some campaigns may be successful due to factors which are not controllable, such as weather. A campaign directed to customers in an area which is having good weather on a weekday during working hours may have a low hit rate, whereas another campaign directed to customers in an area which is experiencing adverse weather, such as a snowstorm or blizzard, on the same day during the same hours may have a high hit rate because more customers will be at home. A system administrator would therefore want to terminate the ineffective campaign at an early point, or move some of the agents to a second campaign, or begin a third campaign. However, this requires the system administrator to continually monitor the success of a campaign. The system administrator must then take the appropriate action if the campaign success rate is low.
Therefore, there is a need for an automated customer service system which is easily user programmable to be result-oriented so that ineffective campaigns can be automatically terminated, or some of the agents may be moved to other campaigns, or other campaigns may be started and staffed.
Although most campaigns should be terminated if unsuccessful, some campaigns should be terminated if successful. For example, a calling list may have the names of 100,000 registered voters, but a surveying (poll-taking) organization will only need to contact a small fraction of these voters to obtain meaningful results. If the organization only needs to contact 2,000 voters then the campaign may be terminated once this goal is achieved. Conventional systems require the system administrator to periodically evaluate the results and manually terminate the campaign, or require that the calling list be broken into numerous smaller calling lists and, each time that a smaller calling list is completed, the system administrator can evaluate the results and decide whether to initiate another of the smaller calling lists. This results in extra work and/or delays.
Therefore, there is a need for an automated customer service system which is easily user programmable to be result-oriented so that successful campaigns can be automatically terminated, or some of the agents may be moved to other campaigns, or other campaigns may be started and staffed.
In addition, calls should be placed so as to maximize the responsiveness of the customer to the call. In the world of today, people are constantly bombarded with information, desired and undesired, when desired and when untimely, and where desired and where inconvenient. A person is generally more receptive to information, including advertisements, bills, and requests when that information is presented at the time, at the location, and in the manner desired by that person. A seller, telemarketing organization, debt collection organization, customer service organization, credit-extending organization, investigator, surveying organization, or other such entity, herein collectively referred to as product/service providers or, more simply, providers, should therefore, before contacting a person by telephone or even by mail, consider the preferences of that person as much as possible so as to enhance the likelihood of a successful contact. Currently, many systems allow only a single telephone number for a customer. Systems that allow more than one telephone number for a customer generally start at the first number and call each of the other telephone numbers in sequence until the customer is reached or all of the numbers have been called. Further, if a call is made to a customer at, say, 2 p.m. and the customer or the person who answers indicates that the call should be placed again at a later time, say 4 p.m., then some systems will provide for the call to be placed again at that time. However, this information is generally not kept and, on a subsequent campaign, the call to that customer may again be placed at 2 p.m., even if the customer is never home at 2 p.m. or the customer does not want to be disturbed at 2 p.m. because the customer is always doing something important at that time, such as checking stock prices or taking a nap. Therefore, there is a need for a system which is responsive to the preferences of the customer so that, when a call is placed, the customer will most likely be in a frame of mind to give a positive response to the call.
Also, not all customers want to be interrupted by a telephone call. Some may prefer to be contacted by mail, and others may wish to be contacted by facsimile, or by electronic mail. However, current telemarketing systems only provide for one method of communication: voice. Further, most billing systems only provide for one method of communication: mail. Therefore, there is a need for a customer service system which can accommodate a plurality of different communications media and contact the customer in the manner deemed most desirable by the customer.
Also, in conventional systems, the system administrator must manually select which agents are to be assigned to different campaigns. This often involves considering the conflicting requirements of several simultaneous campaigns. This task is frequently so burdensome that it cannot be accomplished in a timely manner and the assignment of agents is less than optimum. In addition, some campaigns may be improperly staffed because agents which are best suited for those campaigns have been assigned to other campaigns which do not require the special skills or qualifications that these agents have. Therefore, there is a need for a customer service system which automatically inspects the campaign requirements, inspects the agent qualifications, and assigns agents to campaigns which need the special skills of those agents.